Then the second stage is called continuous setting or continuous placing. We are just starting out with mindfulness, with memory and with trying to get the object of meditation. In the beginning the mind is really uncontrolled and so the kind of force, or mental engagement, that is necessary is one that needs a little more force to it because it is right at the beginning when the mind is so bananas. The type of engagement is called forceful other translations render this word as painstaking. So we try to recall all the teachings on calm abiding, think about what the object of our meditation looks like and then try to focus on it. We had to first hear the teachings from our teacher, then we try to remember them, then we need to think about them. The power we are basically practicing here is the one of hearing. It is the same when we finally sit down and try to concentrate: the distractions seem like they get worse, but be rest assured they are not. When you live by the highway all the time, you do not hear the cars, but when you go away on a quiet vacation and then come back, the noise can seem like thunder. People very often say when they start to meditate, “My mind is crazier now than it was before.” It is not that it is crazier now and that there are more thoughts it is just that we are probably noticing them for the first time. Sometimes when you are on this stage it appears that the thoughts become worse than they used to be. So in this first step the time spent in distractions are much more than the amount of time you actually spend focused on the object. Then you bring the mind back to the image of the Buddha and the mind goes away again. We get the object for a couple of seconds and then the mind goes away.
We sit down and try to get the object but most of the time our mind is in distraction.
The first stage is called setting, or placing, the mind and this is when you are first starting out and you are just struggling to get the object of meditation.įor example, say our object of meditation is the image of the Buddha. There are various translations for these terms so what I say may not be what you read in a book because different translators use different words. The first stage is called setting the mind or placing the mind. They are the progression of steps in which the mind gets trained and subdued in order to actually reach calm abiding. They are just categories that are described to give you a feeling of the kind of flow that you go through as you are developing calm abiding. We should not think of these as concrete self-existent stages. In the nine stages you practice six mental powers and four types of engagement that help you go through those nine stages. These are the steps in developing calm abiding. So what we have left are the nine stages that we practice to develop calm abiding. If you look at your main lamrim outline, we have talked about arranging the proper circumstances, the five deterrents and the eight antidotes.
The section that we are now on is the nine mental abidings. LR 115: Meditative stabilization 03 ( download) Nine stages in practicing calm abiding LR 115: Meditative stabilization 02 ( download) Questions and answers
#Dark and light taming string need to breakj series#
Part of a series of teachings based on the The Gradual Path to Enlightenment (Lamrim) given at Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle, Washington, from 1991-1994. Commentaries on Essential Buddhist Texts.
0 kommentar(er)
